Please help us continue to provide you with free, quality journalism by turning off your ad blocker on our site.

Thank you for signing in.

If this is your first time registering, please check your inbox for more information about the benefits of your Forbes account and what you can do next!

I agree to receive occasional updates and announcements about Forbes products and services. You may opt out at any time.

I'd like to receive the Forbes Daily Dozen newsletter to get the top 12 headlines every morning.

Forbes takes privacy seriously and is committed to transparency. We will never share your email address with third parties without your permission. By signing in, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Statement.

At the turn of the 20th century, everyone wanted one of these, and horses were passé.

Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

In the late Middle Ages the ultimate weapon system was the mounted knight. They were intimidating and impressive: bedecked in heavy plate armour over a suit of mail, astride a powerful destrier (which too may be armoured) and brandishing a lance or sword or other hacking weapon. Much was invested in these fighting men, in terms of wealth, training and social value, and for a time they dominated the battlefield.

It wasn’t long before technology and social forces began to threaten the supremacy of the mounted man-at-arms. The crossbow, a simple weapon to learn and use, could be wielded by a member of the peasantry, and could bring down a knight who had trained hard in the use of the sword, lance and horse since youth. Gunpowder weapons began to appear on the battlefield, which drove another nail into the coffin of the mounted and armoured fighting man. Armies, which used to be called up and led by noblemen only when needed, were becoming professional standing forces, and were both proletarianized (as the ranks were filled by commoners) and royalized (as they could only be afforded by monarchs). What was to become of the centuries-long legacy of the armoured cavaliers that fought the wars of the time?

The answer to this question may align closely to the answer for a similar question that cities and nations face regarding our existing transportation infrastructure. With the myriad improvements and technological transformations to the mobility space that are both coming and already here, what do they all mean for the colossal transportation infrastructure that already exists? Everything from the drill head to the gas station, from the traffic light to the parking lot, has been created to serve and service the private internal combustion engine automobile. Our cities have been shaped by them and entire industries have appeared to support them. But with mass electrification, vehicle autonomy and big data for smart cities (among other technologies) on the horizon, what do we do with all of what exists in our transportation space right now?

One approach is to re-purpose our transport assets so that they align more with what’s coming rather than with what exists. The minds at Wunder Mobility, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, offers solutions that address the current stock of vehicles on our roads today. This writer had the opportunity to speak to Sam Baker, Chief Operations Officer and co-founder of Wunder, and obtained some insight on how we might begin to capture more utility from our existing mobility assets.

Baker began the discussion with a mention of the huge investments being made in parking infrastructure these days, such as the Softbank investment in ParkJockey. This speaks to how forward-looking capital can already see how existing parking lots could become service hubs for new mobility: autonomous vehicles that need a place to park if they are not in use, charging stations for electric vehicles, ride-hailing stations, and so forth. Given that major cities have dedicated significant fractions of their land to parking infrastructure (as much as 14% in Los Angeles, for example), these investments may be well-positioned to catch the coming wave of mobility innovation.

“The future of transport is not going to be a monopoly where the only way I can get to work is by taking Uber. It’s probably going to be a very rich patchwork of operators of different sizes, providing different services, and some of them have been around for decades if not hundreds of years.”

Sam Baker, COO, Wunder Mobility

Wunder’s foundational technology is a “mobility operating system” that addresses the vast bulk of trips that use public transit, private autos, rental cars and other modes that are already on the street and are not connected to the internet (a la Uber and Lyft). “[Wunder] connects those [assets] to the internet, and organizes it in a more efficient way,” said Baker. “We work with legacy operators, public transit providers and fleet management companies to help get them connected to a management system that helps them increase utilization of vehicles on the road.”

“The future of transport is not going to be a monopoly where the only way I can get to work is by taking Uber. It’s probably going to be a very rich patchwork of operators of different sizes, providing different services, and some of them have been around for decades if not hundreds of years.” Baker highlighted Wunder’s role in this, as a provider of tools that allow transportation companies to elevate themselves with technology that leverages their existing knowledge and expertise.

Tying parking lots and increasing utilization together, Baker offered this use case: “We have a deployment in Germany, at a large office building in Munich, with 3000 employees and 300 cars. Not enough parking space and everyone is annoyed because they can’t find a spot. So we launched a carpooling program for those employees. They open an app, find a match with a co-worker heading in the same direction to get to work, [and carpool together].” The app mentioned is Wunder’s, which talks to their back end and helps inform the wider system.

Carpooling is a simple solution to traffic congestion, but adoption of the practice can be a ... [+] challenge when there's no help organizing it, or if there's little direct incentive.

Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Baker continued: “They roll up to the parking garage at work. A camera scans their license plate, verifies that that car has done a verified carpool in our back end system, and opens the gate and lets them into a preferred parking area that’s dedicated just for carpoolers.” This deployment has helped the office building increase parking capacity by 20%, while still using the existing vehicles and parking infrastructure, requiring only the addition of some sensors and software.

Another example of re-purposing existing infrastructure is the use of standard city light poles as charging stations for shared micromobility devices. Baker referenced Kuhmute, a startup that offers a solution for shared scooter operators that could solve the expensive pickup-recharge-deploy problem faced by companies like Bird and Lime. Rather than paying third-party contractors to recharge the devices, operators could require their customers to dock their devices at an equipped light pole after use, which solves the charging and the “unsightly sidewalk obstacle” problem at the same time.

We are still in the early days of the global transformation of mobility, and the struggle to retain as much value as we can from the gigantic investments we’ve made in our “old” technology is just beginning. The armoured fighting men who suddenly found that they no longer formed the pinnacle of warfare ended up adapting and becoming still-vital components—leaders and members of an elite—to the professional armies that were to follow. Similarly, innovators in mobility like Wunder and Kuhmute offer the legacy transportation industry an opportunity to adapt to the coming changes in technology and society. A gentle evolution remains possible, and is arguably preferable to the practice of digging in one’s heels in an ultimately vain attempt to prevent the inevitable.